Her Story, His Story
by goody goody gumdrops
Summary: Bella hardly knew anyone, but she'd agreed to go the concert anyway. Then SOMEONE said she shouldn't go swimming at the beach after dark. SOMEONE said he'd missed his lift back to town and needed somewhere to stay. SOMEONE hadn't brought pajamas...
1. Chapter 1

**Her Version: One**

The festival had been great. Straggly-haired, sad-eyed earnest folk singing along to violins and playing bodhrans - just what I like. I'd worn a singlet I tie-dyed myself, and an ankle-length velvet skirt. My hair hung long and limp over my shoulders with a couple of braids I'd woven glitter thread into, I had henna tattoos spiraling over the backs of my hands, and I was wearing sandals that showed off my toe-rings. I looked like all the other girls.

I didn't really know any of these these people too well, but a notice had gone up on the board at uni about tickets to the Sun Festival, and I'd put my name down. We got a special deal on the coach for transport, and on accommodation, and here we all were.

We were staying at "The Chalets" as they were called in the brochure, which were separated from the beach by a thick band of trees. Beachy trees - piney things, tall with a warm foresty smell, not that I'm a botanist, clearly. There was undergrowth too, providing density along with all the treetrunks between us and Neptune, so effectively we could hear the waves but not see them.

In the evening there were a bunch of us sitting round ejoying the great outdoors, and some guy skinned up a jay and gave it to the girl sitting next to him. He rolled up another, and another, and before anybody knew it, between twenty people there were about a zillion joints. I'm not sure that's mathematically correct or possible.

And now here I was with a bunch of like-minded individuals, earnestly discussing the boycott of sushi and Sony because Japan was still catching minke whales for so-called scientific purposes.

The joints got lit, and the joints got passed around, and the mood got more mellow as people's systems responded in their own particular ways. Some of the group were quieter and contemplative, some wandered off on verbal tangents that didn't require response. One guy produced a guitar and someone else had a harmonica, and the sweet strains of Hey Mr Tambourine Man drifted in and out of the burnt herbal smell and we all of us then had a soundtrack to our mental meanderings.

We'd cleared a large area out in the open, dragging branches and twigs and piling them up, and in the middle of our circle a bonfire crackled. Flame-spell caught me - my gaze held by the ever-changing, ever-consuming, all-renewing licks of gold escaping from gravity. I was working up a theory that vulcanism is the catalyst that engenders life itself, because flames have movement, and they feed and they grow and they propagate, and are they pure energy? Are they? It seemed like a plausible idea and a profound one, but I wasn't sure who to express it to. What if it was dumb? What if somebody had already said it, and been argued down? What if the scientific community at large already knew the catalyst, and it was sulfur, or - um - nitrous oxide or something?

They would all look at me, all these fellow-travelers, and think I was stupid. I was enrolled in an arts degree, with a journalism major and I'd learned a lot of people considered that was the easiest thing to study - the soft option. Journalism is so competitive that only the brightest and the best get jobs - and most of the time their degree isn't journalism-related to start with. I'd even heard science and engineering students call the type of course I was doing "Marriage 101", meaning that girls studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree were only at University to meet "men with prospects" who they could walk up the aisle with a few years later once everyone had qualified. The husbands would by then be lawyers or doctors or engineers and their wives would be university-educated women with the time and the income to wear high fashion while organizing charity events to benefit those less fortunate. I couldn't remember anything about any of these other happy campers, but none of them had coughed the way I'd coughed when I'd taken a hit on a couple of jays. Well, probably six or seven jays. I had no idea. Could have been more. Maybe I hadn't coughed that much - no-one had whacked me on the back or called an ambulance. Maybe the rest of them had forgotten I was even there, because I hadn't had anything noteworthy to say.

It was hot near the fire, and my eyes were being irritated by the heat as well as the smoke. Despite being in no mood to cry, tears were pooling. All my body parts were separate and distinct, and I knew a lethargy in my limbs with a racing heartbeat. My throat hurt. On my bare shoulders cool fingers of ocean breeze coaxed me and lured me and urged me, and I got to my feet and turned blindly, into the origin of the light wind and the cool, cool scent of the sea. Charcoal and ashes would occupy this space tomorrow, after the last spark had fled to the sky. The fire lived, the wood died, in an inexorable play, but the ocean went on and on and on, and would go on until the sun was fit to burst.

I couldn't tell anybody that either because it was too naively poetic and wrong, and the evaporation of the earth's water would probably predate the death of the sun by millions of millennia. Any science student would know that - even anybody who could read a newspaper.

I turned my back on the fire and the people lauding Dylan and I dived through the wood and the air towards the surf.

**His Version: Two**

_Edward Cullen, widely regarded as the most promising of this year's crop of emergent photographers_ ... I'll fill that gap in later ... _is attending this year's Salute the Sun to turn his eye/display his talent/showcase his abilities ... to add to his already impressive portfolio of candid and often revealing shots of concert-goers and performers alike..._

God - the words "pretentious" and "loser" spring to mind - firstly for imagining newspaper articles about myself, and secondly for not being able to write them. Yeah, well my gift is visual, not verbal.

Salute the Sun happens in Port Angeles annually on the closest Saturday to Jun 30, and I attend and take pictures. I've done pretty well the last three years, getting them published in the local paper, but I want to go further afield. I want to get them into magazines, and newspapers of credibility, not just the Forks Inquirer - as if there was anything worth inquiring into in Forks.

I shoot five rolls of film, both black and white and color, and some girl called Jessica latches on to me and wants me to take shots of her. She poses a bit and tosses her hair around and I click away a few times, and she writes her e-mail address on a slip of paper so I can send them. Before I tuck it into my pocket I notice there's also a phone number, but I don't mention it. She's cute, but a little vacuous, and I'm not looking for a girlfriend. Tonight I'm not even looking for a quick fix because I have a ride home lined up at eleven, and I don't particularly fancy sleeping rough if I miss my lift. And I don't particularly fancy waking up next to airhead Jessica tomorrow morning and having to worm my way out of her bed without giving the impression of being an asshole.

"I'm down here with a group of friends, we're all staying at the beach, it's really nice, there's going to be a huge party there later, you should totally hang out with us ..." she says, and manages to not register me trying to extricate myself gracefully.

"Thanks Jessica, it's been really nice meeting you, I'll be in touch," I nod.

"We're going to have a bonfire and cook sausages, there's a whole coachload of us and we booked this entire hotel, they've got twenty bungalows and ..."

What's that condition where people don't listen called - preferential hearing? Selective deafness?

"I've got my own room. Maybe you'd like to take some _other_ kinds of photos of me? I'm very open-minded..."

From what I can see - which is a generous amount of cleavage - her tits are great, but I'm not into that sort of photography.

"Er, no," I reply, which is all I get in before Jessica sweet-but-dumb tucks her hand through my elbow and says, "OK, sure, fine - you know someone said to me once that you should never do anything you wanted want your own daughter to talk about at a ten-year old's birthday party - very wise, don't you think? What shall we do now?"

It's time for affirmative, though negative action.

"Jess, thanks for keeping me company like this, but I've got friends here I need to meet up with, and I should be getting along. I'll email you the pictures over the next day or two, okay?"

"Hey - here's some of the people I came with! The guy's Mike - he's so interesting - he's doing commerce, but he already knows it all because his parents own a sporting goods store, and that girl - you've got to meet her - she's cool! And you know what - she's studying journalism, and you're taking pictures, right? She could write the bylines or captions or whatever they're called for you. You two could do stuff together..."

This time _I'm_ the one practising selective deafness. After one inadvertent glimpse in the direction Jessica's indicating I've tuned poor Jessica out altogether. The girl she's gesturing towards looks exactly the same as every other girl here, but somehow different. So different.

There's a tribal uniform apparent, so that people can be identified easily for their political or philosophical stance without anyone having to ask them twenty questions. This girl has the whole Gaia thing going, so she's into earth power and animus shit and let's all be vegans and absolutely, capitalistic hegemony is really evil, so I bought this shoulder bag made of hand-dyed Peruvian alpaca wool from these really great women who run a collective. Am I being too judgmental? Yes I am, _far_ too judgmental, because I don't know what it is, but there's _something_.

For a start, she is so fucking pale - she's alabaster, while all the other hippy girls are golden. If we're celebrating the sun today, it must be the one day of the year she's been outside without darting from shadow to shadow - she's like a ghost.

But she's a ghost who looks actually substantial. I want to speak to her, although I have no idea what I'm going to say. Jessica is burbling away to her companion, Mike of no account, and uncharacteristically I find myself not knowing where to start.

"So which was your favorite band?" I say, in lieu of anything else, although it's probably a fair enough opener.

"Oh, I liked pretty much everything," she answers.

Please lovely girl, have an opinion.

"They all kind of blend into one another after a while. No-one really stands out, because no-one's really doing anything different. It's like the organizers stipulated everyone has to crochet their solar panels to the same specifications, you know?" she adds, and it's the bizzarest thing anyone's said all day. And the most honest. I'm intrigued. I think I like her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Her Version: Three**

The sand was cool and fine, and wriggled between my toes. Each little grain used to be part of a mountain, then a rock. Each had been here longer than mankind. Sand is primordially old, and has shifted and traveled around our globe more times than this crooked sphere has been circumnavigated by pirates and buccaneers, explorers and adventurers. Each grain, when struck in just the right way by a ray of light, can sparkle like the light from a distant star. And each grain, when combined with many of its fellows and subjected to heat, can transform into milky, clear or opaque glass - a gift to us from mountains.

I twirled to the music of the waves, this way and that, and I wanted to hear whales sing. Ahead, the moon's silver path shone on the water, and I marveled at how whenever I was gazing at a stretch of water at night, the moon extended her invitation straight to me. Lunar visits wouldn't be available in my lifetime, but if they were, would I go? Would I visit the windless rocks, undisturbed but for meteorites, and the giant, elongated steps of those intruders, Neil and Buzz? Of course I would. I'd sell my soul to pay for it.

Down to the water's edge I walked. It was on a night like this that a woman made love with a man on the beach, then waded into the water still naked. Floating and drifting and dreaming, she met a brutal and shockingly violent end, shredded by the razor teeth of the last megalodon. Was Jaws a megalodon? No, just huge. Jaws isn't real, that's a fiction, but shark attacks do happen. Always spooked by the sea, I watched for fins.

My toes loved the water though, just as they loved the sand. Beneath them the hard little ridges of the dune gave way, admitting me. Led by the moonpath, I was in up to my thighs now, having bunched my dress up and tucked it into the elastic of my panties.

"Hey!" a voice said suddenly, and right behind me a man's figure loomed, reaching for my arm.

I jumped back instinctively, and over-balanced, toppling just as he grabbed me. He toppled too, both of us going down.

Strong hands were groping for me then, and they brushed my breasts, but settled under my armpits, hauling me up.

"Jesus - are you all right? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you like that," he said, completely flustered. In the silverlight I saw it was the boy-man who'd spoken to me at the festival. Edward. He'd been at the bonfire too, but I'd been so lost in watching the flames that I hadn't taken any notice of him.

"Sorry I - ah - touched you inappropriately. It was unintentional - I just saw that your face go under the water and I wanted to pull you out," he added. He still held me, and we were still in the lightly surging waves, lapping with their insistent push-me-pull-you's around our feet.

"I saw that you were smoking dope back at the bonfire, and so I followed you when you headed out here. It's dangerous to swim when you're stoned," he said.

"Are _you_ stoned?" I asked, finding my voice.

"No. I didn't have any."

"You don't smoke?"

"Yeah. But I missed my ride home and I'll have to hitchhike, and I want to be alert."

"Alert. And water-logged?" I said.

He smiled and shook his head. "No, water-logged wasn't part of the hitch-hiking scheme, but the saturation is only partial. I hope nobody will mind. Anyway - shall we go a bit further up the sand?"

One of his hands slipped down to one of mine and he seemed quite determined to get me out of the water, so I allowed him to lead me.

"Do you know why whales beach themselves?" I asked.

"Sure - their navigational abilities get screwed up by ships' radars," he answered easily.

I sat down, and since he was still holding my hand he sat with me. "Oh, I don't think it's that prosaic," I told him. "I think it's something infinitely deeper and more profound. Life began in the sea, didn't it?"

Ordinarily I couldn't have said anything like this in front of a group of people, or even one on one, but I felt I could tell him. I cross my legs at the ankle, knees spread wide and dress almost up to my hips but he didn't look down, even though my panties were probably showing. He looked at my face, and his gaze was inquisitive and genuine.

"The scientific community seem to agree that point, yes," he nodded.

"Well, first the arachnids came ashore - they could breathe air-born oxygen, and they slowly evolved into more complex creatures, and sometime, somehow, millions of years later, alongside dinosaurs, mammals came into being. And after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, the mammals flourished, and inexplicably, animals arrived that wanted to go back to the ocean. They were feeding there anyway, and maybe they sought the lightness where they were quicker, and where their prey was to be found, so they returned. They lost their feet and legs, and even hair, and they gained blubber to warm them and streamline them, and for aeons they swam and dived, needing the sky every few minutes, or however long, depending on their species. But what if they weren't happy with that? What if they saw the sailors in their ships, and the children at the seashore, and they saw the myriad colors and sounds of the world above the waves, and they thought they'd made the wrong choice? What if the land-dwellers were unknowingly issuing a siren-call all this time, and the great whales wanted to renounce their fins and tails and walk anew on solid ground? They drive themselves up onto the shore, and even when they're forcibly turned and pushed back, or towed out, they're determined to strand themselves again. Maybe it's because land is really where they want to be. They have no sense of time out there in the ocean, they only know they've had enough, and they don't know they can't undergo the necessary changes in minutes. Maybe they don't know there _are_ necessary changes - maybe they have a universal memory of walking."

His hand lay curled in mine, on my knee, heavy and real. A muscle in his jaw moved, his lips tightened and relaxed again. His eyes had the luster of pearl.

"That's one of the most original ideas I've ever heard," he said. "Bella? Your name's Bella, isn't it? Do you want me to take you to find your friends?"

Friends are people you want to be with. I didn't particularly want to be with any of those others, because around them I was uncomfortable. By definition, my best friend right then was him, goodness knows why. Maybe because he'd taken me seriously, and I hadn't felt ridiculous telling him something wacky. Besides, I didn't know which direction the gang from uni were in. Around me were sea and trees and infinity. This beach felt like an anomaly in space and time, a bubble inside the laws of physics. Even with a lighthouse and a map and co-ordinates I would still be floundering.

"Um, I don't know. I'm not sure where any friends of mine are. And I wouldn't have a clue which direction to start in to look for them," I said.

"We just take a perpendicular path back from the shoreline," he said.

"But once we're in the trees, how will we know?"

"I know which way to go," he told me.

We've all been told the sky spins, and we know the universe is expanding at an astonishing rate as constellations and galaxies hurtle from one another. Why would we assume north is always in the same direction? I was dubious.

"Do you know celestial navigation?" I asked, and a corner of his mouth turned up.

"No, I just have an internal compass."

"Are you sure we won't get lost?" I said, lost already.

"Positive."

I was completely disorientated even though his explanation made perfect sense, but his confidence was reassuring. I clutched his hand nervously as we made our way across the sand and into the belt of trees. Once there the heavens were nowhere near as easy to see, obscured by the canopy as they were.

"So are we going the right way?" I said, wondering if I should simply lie down on a bed of pine needles and wait for morning. The sound of the sea didn't appear to be coming from any direction, it seemed all around, and I really had no idea where we'd come from or where we should be going.

"It's okay," he said, like the Lone Ranger from an old movie - tall and sure and reliable. The trees seemed unnavigable and looking upwards offerred me no clues, and I could do nothing but place my trust in him. He didn't even stumble as much as I did, as though the twigs didn't rise to meet his feet the way they did mine.

It could have been minutes or hours later when we emerged from the shadows into the light thrown by the fire. The girl who'd persuaded me to come to this festival, Jessica, was sitting on a log off to one side locked in a passionate embrace with the boy she'd told me I'd really like, Michael. They made me think of two chameleons who'd tried to catch the same fly, only to find their tongues inextricably tangled. I felt no disappointment, as within a minute of meeting Mike he'd said two words that made me know I could never be interested in him - "I work in a sports store, and I study commerce." Edward hadn't said anything approaching either of those two things.

I was still a little stoned, although it had mostly worn off. I felt magnanimous, impulsive and trusting.

"You don't have to hitch back to town. Anyway, there won't be any traffic. You'd be out there on the road all night. Come and sleep on the couch in our chalet, instead," I invited.

"Thanks," he grinned, dark and moonlit and seaswept and beautiful.

**His Version: Four**

She hadn't tried to take her hand back from me. She didn't try to stop and sit down with the other students. She kept walking, naturally and unquestioningly, as if we'd already agreed on it, and she took me to one of the cabins.

Without flicking a light switch, she led me inside, then I heard the soft strike of a match and she lit several candles. The fridge was stocked with beer and soft-drinks. The counter-tops were strewn with packets of snacks. Evidence of female occupation was everywhere, as if a girlish whirlwind had been through, depositing hairbrushes and sarongs and sandals and scent bottles. A lacy white bra was draped over a chair.

Without seeming the least embarrassed or self-conscious about any of it, Bella turned to me. "There's a washer-dryer in the bathroom. Do you want to get out of those clothes and I'll take care of them for you?"

I hesitated, because I had nothing else to put on.

"Oh. You have a predicament," she observed, and then reached for one of the sarongs, handing it to me. That was all very well - if I doubled it over and wrapped it around my hips it would be mid-calf length, which was one thing, but the fabric was pretty fine. The bulge of my crotch was going to be rather evident. Still, my jeans were wet and I couldn't get dressed again until they were dry. Figuring if Bella wasn't going to mind, I wasn't going to either, I nodded.

"You have first shower then," she suggested. "You'll find soap and shampoo in there. Towels are on a shelf in the cabinet."

The shower was bliss. It was such a warm evening that I didn't need the heat up very high, and I stood under the stream letting the cool jet rinse the day's sweat off me. The feminine whirlwind had been in here too, leaving tubes and bottles and jars, and even a pair of panties. I forced myself not to look, because it seemed far too pervy. I'd had to force myself for the last hour not to look at the way Bella's thin skirt was tucked into the elastic of her underwear, and how slim and pale her thighs were. I'd had to force myself not to look when we were sitting on the beach talking, and the strap of her singlet slipped down her shoulder at one point alerting me to the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. Wet as she was, the singlet was clinging to her breasts and I could see that her nipples were erect. I hadn't looked at that either though, intent on paying to attention to what she'd been saying.

And she was by far the most interesting girl I'd ever spoken to. She expressed herself in terms that were both visual and poetic, making me envious of her easy way with words. And her ideas! They were a revelation. _She_ was a revelation. Clever, thoughtful and individualistic. With a smooth milky throat I wanted to kiss, and breasts that looked perfectly shaped to fit my palms, and - shut up. If I kept on the train of thought I was currently on, I wouldn't be able to leave the bathroom with nothing but a flimsy piece of cloth wrapped around me. Or if I did, I would have to have taken care of business first. Shit - why hadn't I just attended to matters while I was in the shower? Too late to turn the taps back on now. Had I already taken too long? Bella was out there in soaked clothing, and must be uncomfortable.

Hanging the damp towel up on a rail, I looked at myself in the mirror. It was no good trying to get my hair to lie flat - it never did. I combed it roughly with my fingers, checked and double checked the way I'd knotted the sarong, and turned sideways on, inspecting my profile. My below-the-waist profile. If I so much as _thought_ about getting a semi - never mind actually having one, it would be very evident. I hoped Bella wasn't going to be easily shocked, or offended, and I hoped she wouldn't think I had evil intentions.

Time to head back to the main room.

She offered me corn chips and cola and she lit sandalwood sticks. There was weird waterfall music coming from somewhere, and the tv was on with the sound down, emitting its blue flickers.

"Back soon," Bella promised, from the bathroom door.

Good as her word, she reappeared in ten minutes, wearing a tanktop and loose shorts. A figure-hugging tank top, and shorts that ended at upper thigh level. Her hair was wound in a tousled, messy pile on top of her head, secured by some gravity-defying method known only to women. It worked imperfectly, as a couple of wavy strands escaped to frame her cheek and jaw, dangling almost to her breasts. Not that I looked.

"Hey - a smoke before bed? Since you're not hitch-hiking?" she offered, and I would probably have said yes to anything.

From somewhere she produced a small pipe, and she had a little foil which smelled suspiciously like skunk. We were going to be goners.

"You first," she offered, after packing the cone tightly, and she handed me the little cylinder. She even lit it for me, and waited as I inhaled, lungs expanding and lips locking tight so I could hold on to my indrawn breath as the smoke curled around within me. I pushed the pipe back towards her while the embers still glowed, and she took a deep draw on it. The hit was immediate - this was fucking good gear. My breath burst back out from me and I couldn't not laugh, suddenly finding my situation absurd. Really, if I was to list the components that added up to the perfect occasion, wouldn't they be a pretty girl, weed, beer, and music? Well, yeah, depending on the day of the week, ice-caving might make it in there, or jet-skiing, or rally-driving. They were all good, too. But right now, I was getting severely stoned with a gorgeous girl who wasn't wearing much, and everything was blurring around the edges. If nothing at all happened between us, I would remember how she looked with her eyes closed and lips pursed, dragging on the pipe, face all alive and shadowed, collarbones in relief, and the captivating swell of her small breasts rising gently as she inhaled.

"Jesus, Bella, this is really strong. I feel amazing. Are you okay?" I murmured, and she smiled in sheer contentment.

"I'm okay. I'm fucking great, actually. Who could ask for anything more?" she replied fuzzily.

We could have spoken - we could have talked one another's ears off, I'm sure of it, but for a while we just sat. I was so fucking out of it, it took ages for me to realize that my arm was around her, and my hand was on her shoulder. It took me even longer to understand that the weight pinning my legs to the couch was her thighs across me. When had that happened? Her long hair was everywhere, and I found myself stroking it and playing with it before I knew what was going on. And with a sudden jolt I realized that her fingertips were describing patterns across my bare chest with a touch like butterfly's feet. It was incredibly sensuous, but not sexy.

"What do these mean?" I asked huskily, touching the henna'd patterns on her hands. They were only just visible in the gentle light from the candles.

"Um, I think they're to do with fertility. Inappropriate, really," she said with a quite laugh. "No-one wants to get pregnant at a festival."

"No," I agreed, without adding that a lot of attendees would be pretty happy to get some sex, though. Fuck, if I even had it in me to string two words together, I might ask her if she was in the mood. But, that would make me an opportunistic dickhead. Just because we were both right off our faces didn't mean I could indulge my ever-hopeful, ever-ready dick, and make him Mr Happy. Right now I had no idea where all my blood was, and presumed it was evenly distributed.

But then Bella shifted. She turned more towards me, looped her arms around my neck and repositioned her thighs further up on mine.

"Are you feeling nice?" she asked, softly. "You feel nice to me."

Yes, I felt nice. The initial stupor from the very strong weed was wearing off, and I thought we'd probably been prone for fifteen or twenty minutes. I needed to move my legs too, to ease the muscles that hadn't moved in a while, but Mr Happy was wide awake. If she moved any further towards my lap she'd be an inch or two away from discovering quite how happy he was.

"Um, bathroom," I mumbled, and she scooted away without comment, while I got up, keeping my back to her, and went to splash cold water on my face. Since becoming sexually active five years ago at eighteen, I'd been thankful my dick had never let me down, but right now I didn't welcome its obtrusive willing-and-ableness.

"Christ - you're debauched!" I hissed at my reflection, dick stubbornly up and waving. I couldn't beat off in the couple of minutes it would take before it would seem I'd been in the bathroom for too long - but shit! - I couldn't go back out and face the girl who'd invited me to sleep on her couch in all innocence and trust. And fuck, I was so stoned. I couldn't help a fond grin at Mr Reliable, alongside the scowl. You optimistic bastard.

But, hello. Bella was a grown girl. I'd just say, "Ignore this. I'm sorry," and gesture in the general direction of my lower abdomen, and she'd be cool, and everything would be relaxed and fine. Yep.

She wouldn't think I was a dickhead and an asshat. Here's hoping.


End file.
